


when you've outgrown a lover (the whole world knows but you)

by ladystark



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Divorce, F/M, not putting it in their tag because this is not shippy this is sad, references to their trauma that the show won't ever explore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26709637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladystark/pseuds/ladystark
Summary: “Did you love me?”Jonathan’s heart stills for a moment, and that’s the only sign Nancy has that he heard her whispered question. She doesn’t know why she asked it, but the words slipped off her tongue before she could stop them, deliberately past tense, because she’s not quite ready to hear if he still does.“Yes,” Jonathan says finally, and his voice hitches a little as he adds, “Yeah. I did.”Or, Nancy and Jonathan divorce.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	when you've outgrown a lover (the whole world knows but you)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic started as a joke because i think jonathan and nancy will divorce if they never fix the problems in their relationships, and then it turned into a weird character study because i genuinely love them both and think they deserve better than the show gives them. i have vague plans to write robin/nancy and steve/jonathan follow up pieces, but i am not going to promise anything when said follow up fics might not happen. but they are both gay, so there's that.

When Nancy was young, still a child but old enough to realise that her parent’s marriage was more about security than genuine romance, she decided that when she got married, it would be once, and it would be to her true love. It wouldn’t matter who he was or what he did for a living, so as long as she loved him and he loved her, she would never ask for anything else in life.

Then Nancy is sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and there is so much more she would ask for, like to have Barb alive and to have the nightmares stop and to go back to living life the way she did before, when she didn’t know that monsters were real and had never seen anybody die in front of her. But she cannot have those things, so she allows herself to have Jonathan instead, because Jonathan knows and Jonathan understands and Jonathan fought monsters and solved cases with her, and she is still so young and so scared and so confused, so she clings to him. Clings to him and convinces herself it’s love, it’s meant to be, it’s  _ soulmates,  _ because the other option is that monsters are real but romance is not, and Nancy needs one tiny bit of hope.

So she clings to Jonathan, because that is all she has, makes him an essential part of her life, as permanent as the scar on her hand ( _ the one that matches his, and that means they’re meant to be, right? They spilled blood, they made a pact, they fought a monster together, so she belongs to him and he belongs to her, those are the rules).  _ Kisses him and loves him and holds onto him, and thinks that they’re doing it right, that they’re better than her parents, that this is the one good thing she has in the world, the one thing that will never fade or die.

Nancy, who has always prided herself on calling out the bullshit that other people tell her, has always been good at believing her own lies.

Jonathan is good to her. Jonathan never stops being good to her. He always calls when he’ll be working late and still opens the car door for her and buys her flowers every two weeks, and it’s sweet enough that she’s willing to forgive that he never remembers that she hates lilies and loves hydrangeas. She never has to worry about him cheating on her - Jonathan is nothing if not loyal, and even if he wasn’t, his trust issues born from his father’s infidelity ensure that he’d sooner die than put her through that. Jonathan is polite to her mother and learns to make conversation with her father, and wins over her younger siblings.

Karen always sighs wistfully whenever they go back to Hawkins to visit, gets a little tipsy and talks about how she wishes she had a love like theirs. Nancy will just smile and hold her mother’s hand, because she’s never known how to have an open conversation with her, and it wouldn’t be fair to start now. Nancy’s in her thirties, not in her teens, and she doesn’t know how to tell her mother that she thinks she would be happier with someone else.

Karen has been through enough disappointment in her life. Nancy doesn’t want to take this away from her too.

But she’ll lie in bed that night, in her old room, Jonathan snoring softly next to her, and think about being sixteen years old in the woods, holding a gun in her hand and saying  _ screw that. _

Nancy tries not to think about how she might not be disappointing her mother, but she’s disappointing the girl she once was.

* * *

_ (This is love,  _ she tells herself every night in the mirror, repeating it like a mantra. Says it over and over again, wanting – no, needing – to believe it. Nancy needs to believe in her marriage, because she lost the ability to believe in anything else long ago.  _ This is comfort, and stability, and safety. It is love. It is love, and that is enough. _

  
Saying it does not make it true, but it  _ is _ enough. For the longest time, it is enough.)

* * *

The thing that drives Nancy the most insane about her marriage is how boring it is.

She knows it shouldn’t bother her. She knows that she’s lucky to have something so solid, and that after everything they’ve been through, they’ve earned a nice, boring life. That for all her talk about how much she hated the idea of suburbia, she’s had enough excitement to last her several lifetimes.

But their lives have become so mundane, and it makes Nancy want to claw at her skin. Makes her want to scream about how much she hates the  _ routine  _ of it all, the “See you later, honey!” that they say every morning before Jonathan goes to his studio and Nancy to the paper, the stilted conversations about their respective days over dinner (one that Jonathan always cooks, because it always makes like Nancy feel like a housewife), the mediocre sex they have before bed. (Nancy remembers one of her coworkers giggling with drunken joy and telling Nancy how lucky she was when she admitted that Jonathan went down on her semi-regularly, and Nancy had to stop herself from complaining about how bad he was at it.) She knows that a lot of people would love to have her life, that they’d embrace the topic of children instead of ignoring it entirely, that they’d adore having a spouse that put security and comfort before excitement and grand gestures. Nancy feels horrible for how much she’s grown to resent her life, her mind always taunting her about how Barb never got to live past sixteen and settle down into domesticity. 

But her entire marriage to Jonathan feels like a betrayal towards the young kids they used to be, and she thinks that’s why she likes to start arguments with him, sometimes.

(She can’t help but wonder if Jonathan needs to  _ feel  _ something too, because despite his claims that he doesn’t like to fight with her, he always gives as good as he gets.)

Most of the time, it’ll be over small things, like a comment he made about her father or how she never does her fair share of housework. Other times, it’ll be a bigger argument, like about how she refuses to even consider the possibility of kids unless Jonathan gives up his career to be a stay at a home dad, or about how he doesn’t seem to care about the stories she investigates now that he’s not tagging along.

If they’re feeling particularly petty, they’ll bring up things they did as teenagers and throw it in each other’s faces. Nancy will snap about the pictures he took of her (and he’ll say it that it’s unfair to bring that up because it didn’t bother her then, and it didn’t, not really, she was just confused and scared for Barb, but it was wrong, and maybe it is half a lifetime later but that doesn’t mean her disgust isn’t _fair_ ) and Jonathan will make a snide remark about how she’d probably be happier playing housewife to someone who peaked in high school (and she can’t deny the little thrill she feels when she sneers and says, _Maybe that’s what you want, Jonathan_ ).

They fight, but they do not resolve them. They always say they’ll sleep on it and talk it over in the morning when they’re not as angry, when they can be rational. Nancy will kiss him and Jonathan will mount her and neither of them will admit the sex is only good and passionate when there is anger running through their veins. Afterwards Nancy will turn away from him and Jonathan will whisper,  _ Let’s have a conversation tomorrow, yeah?  _

But that never happens, because one of them will wake up with nightmares of dead friends and lost siblings and horrific creatures made of darkness. They will push the fight to the side, hastily stitch it up as if it is a wound that needs immediate attention. Shared trauma comes first, after all, and it’s easy to forget through their tears that wounds will never heal if they keep ripping them open.

* * *

There’s a night towards the end of it all, when Nancy’s curled up on Jonathan’s chest, listening to his heartbeat. It’s the only thing that hasn’t changed in their marriage, the only time she still feels close to him: in the darkness as he holds her until they fall asleep. She can close her eyes and pretend it’s the night he pulled her from the Upside Down, and she’ll take comfort in how safe he feels.

It’s the thought of that night that makes her ask, “Did you love me?”

Jonathan’s heart stills for a moment, and that’s the only sign Nancy has that he heard her whispered question. She doesn’t know why she asked it, but the words slipped off her tongue before she could stop them, deliberately past tense, because she’s not quite ready to hear if he still does.

“Yes,” Jonathan says finally, and his voice hitches a little as he adds, “Yeah. I did.”

_Did._ Deliberately past tense.

And she knows that he’s saying goodbye.

* * *

Jonathan has always been good to her, and he allows them to play pretend for another month before he shatters the illusion they’ve been living in.

They’re fighting again, this time because Nancy suggested that her work was more important than his, and even though she doesn’t really believe it, she refuses to back down. She needs this win, needs to feel  _ something,  _ even if that something no longer feels like love.

But then Jonathan stops in the middle of a sentence about how she’s always looked down on him, and just looks at her. Something in his face drains all the anger out of her, and Nancy realises how tired he looks. Karen used to make offhand comments about how Jonathan always looked drained, with the implication that he was working too hard and not eating enough and driving himself into the ground trying to replace his deadbeat father. Nancy had never really seen it, because she’d been too caught up in how wonderful he used to seem to her, but now she sees what her mother means. Jonathan looks exhausted, like he’s ten years older than he actually is, and it makes Nancy feel guilty about picking this fight, for reopening an already infected and painful wound.

Jonathan sinks down onto the couch and buries his head in his hands. Nancy stares at him, the scar on her palm throbbing and her wedding ring burning into her skin. She doesn’t know how long she stares in silence. It feels like a minute. It feels like a lifetime.

When Jonathan finally speaks, his voice is strained and cracking, as if what he has to say is killing him, and she knows what’s coming when all he manages to get out is, “Nance. We need to talk.”

_ No _ , she wants to scream at him, all the passion that’s been missing from their relationship suddenly flaring up inside of her.  _ No, we don’t need to talk, you need to fight for us, for me. I need you and I need this. We’re safe and comfortable, and maybe we aren’t happy and in love anymore, but what we have is enough. It’s enough. _

The universe has already taken so much from her. It is not fair that it has decided to take Jonathan too.

But Jonathan has always been better at admitting defeat than her. He has always been better at accepting the truth.

And when he looks up at her, eyes wet and smile small, she knows that they can no longer keep believing in this lie.

* * *

They do talk, and it is the most honest and open conversation they have had in years. Maybe the most honest and open conversation they’ve ever had.

All the things they held back, kept to their chests, shoved under the bed and into the closet, come pouring out. Years of frustration and regret and harsh truths, things they should have said a long time ago but never did.

The conclusion they come to is this: they want different things.

Glaringly obvious in hindsight, she supposes, but the reality of it still hits her full force.

She wonders if they were ever truly compatible, or if they just deluded themselves to thinking they were, buried the truth under a need for safety and security when it seemed like they’d never have those things again.

She tells Jonathan as such, and he laughs a little, not unkindly.

“I don’t think anyone could blame us if that was the case, given everything that happened,” he replies, and Nancy wishes for a moment that they could hit rewind, go back to pretending that they’re happy and in love. Jonathan is so good, and it would be so easy to spend the rest of their lives together comfortably.

But she loves him just enough to know he deserves more than that, and she knows he feels the same way about her.

Nancy begins to cry, and Jonathan quickly wraps an arm around her, pulling her close. She buries her head into his shoulder and sobs for what she’s about to lose, cries about their failing marriage more than she has in years. Jonathan strokes her hair and holds her tight, and she appreciates that he’s still gentle and warm. Allows herself this last moment with him, with them, before she has to disappoint the little girl that she was, who believed in her one and only.

She cries until she can’t anymore, until her eyes hurt and her throat is scratchy, and then pulls away to look up at Jonathan. He looks as he always has, and his hand is soft when it comes to rest on her cheek.

“I really did like you,” he says, and she smiles despite her red eyes and tear stained cheeks.

“I know,” she whispers, “I really liked you too.”

* * *

They sit next to each other on the couch after the papers are signed and everything is finalised, surrounded by various boxes of their life together. Neither of them are staying here - doing so would feel like another lie, and Nancy is tired of illusions. She wants to start fresh, start over, find herself in all the contradictions and complications, discover who she really is, instead of the woman she so badly wanted to be.

“So,” Jonathan says, breaking the silence, “That’s it.”

Nancy nods numbly. She’s moving to Chicago in two days, taking a job at a paper over there. Jonathan is staying in New York for a bit, at a tiny apartment where he tries to sort out where to go next. It is confusing, and scary, but strangely freeing to be moving on, allowing themselves to go down different paths for the first time in nearly a decade. Nancy’s excited, more than anything, although there’s bits of grief and regret clinging to her as she sits next to Jonathan - together as a divorced couple for the first time, but together as  _ JonathanAndNancy  _ for the last.

They were indebted to each other for so long, and now that they’re not, the resentment is gone, and Nancy is sad that they have to say goodbye.

“It was real, right?” she asks, and he takes her hand, squeezing it tight. For a moment she is sixteen again, clinging to him for life, cold and scared in the woods of Hawkins and thinking he was her saviour, that if this isn’t proof of love, then she doesn’t know what could be. She wishes, so desperately, that she could be that sixteen year old girl again, when everything was new and thrilling and she thought Jonathan held all the answers.

But Nancy is not sixteen years old anymore, and she is old enough to know that her salvation and happiness will not come from a man who she never quite understood and who never quite understood her, no matter how hard they tried.

Jonathan smiles at her sadly, and she’s glad to see that she’s not the only one crying.

“It was.”

**Author's Note:**

> endless love to elizabeth and milo for being my betas and for being part of "gays against jonathan and nancy as a couple even if we like their characters." thanks for all your help and thoughts, and for allowing me to be as tender about jancy as i'll ever be.  
> title is from hard feelings by lorde.  
> if you wanna say hi or send me hate, my tumblr is tibby.  
> love as always,  
> xx ladystark


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